Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. You can join in here!
♥ GO ♥
I wanted to be extraordinary.
Thick-rimmed glasses and knobby knees and hiding behind a thick curtain of frizzy hair I painted a portrait with a pen of who I wanted to be instead. They stack nicely in the worn cardboard box tucked in the closet, those junior high journals whose pages are the keepers of secrets and wishes for a more extraordinary life. Like a curse they list the dislikes, the hoped-for changes, the not good enough.
Far too ordinary and never good enough.
The dishes are cluttering the counter and the suds splash to the floor because I never remember that this sink is shallow. I look up to see her methodically unfolding every single piece of clothing that was lying freshly-folded in the basket and draping them over the tiny table still covered in remnants of her lunch.
“I building a fort, Mommy!”
Both the potty training toddler and the aging pup have accidents that need to be wiped up and I forget to thaw the beef for tonight’s chili in the midst of the mess. I steal a few minutes to text the man who leaves his heart at home when he drives off to provide for his family and then to type out a few words on a keyboard in pursuit of a dream.
Naptime is fleeting and she asks me for “hidewalk shalk” and we swirl the colors together on the pavement because she wants to draw a rainbow. She runs right over the picture of a promise into the sunset and I stop with breath hitching.
I thought I wanted extraordinary but I just didn’t know that ordinary could be this beautiful.
♥ STOP ♥
